The results of a new study provide yet another reason to stop smoking: People who smoke are more likely to develop the headaches, nasal congestion and sinus pain and pressure of sinusitis.

But the same study suggests that being around secondhand smoke does not increase the risk of coming down with sinusitis.

Still, researchers caution that the study did not examine whether being around cigarette smoke worsens or prolongs an existing case of sinusitis.

Drs. Judith E. C. Lieu and Alvan R. Feinstein, both from the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale University School of Medicine, in New Haven, Connecticut, based these conclusions on a national survey of more than 20,000 Americans ages 17 and older. They estimate that about 35% of the US population has at least one case of sinusitis each year. Women, non-Hispanic whites, blacks and people with higher incomes all had an increased risk of sinusitis, the researchers report in the August issue of the journal Archives of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery.

They also found that smoking increased the risk of sinusitis, although the added risk was small. People who smoked 11 or more cigarettes a day were about 16% more likely to have at least one case of sinusitis than nonsmokers, according to the report. The increased risk was similar for isolated, or acute, cases of sinusitis and for chronic cases.

But the researchers state that being exposed to secondhand smoke at home did not increase the risk of sinusitis--either acute or chronic.

``The results of this study demonstrate that the direct use of tobacco, but not household passive tobacco smoke exposure, can be linked to an increased prevalence of sinusitis,'' the authors write.

They speculate that nicotine as well as other chemicals in tobacco and tobacco smoke may promote sinusitis by somehow affecting the nose and its secretions. Perhaps there is not enough of these substances in secondhand smoke to cause sinusitis, the authors suggest. But people with sinusitis still may want to avoid being around cigarette smoke, since the researchers were not able to tell whether secondhand smoke can make symptoms more severe.

(From chinadaily.com.cn)